The Mississippi University for Women baseball team pulled off an improbable comeback in their St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opening series win at Fontbonne University this weekend, not only overcoming an incredible deficit in the middle innings but also turning a deadlocked ninth inning into a rout.
The Owls trailed 14-4 after five innings, then trailed 17-8 after six innings, but somehow managed to tie the game at 17 in the eighth. They went into the ninth looking to make anything happen, and what they made happen was an avalanche.
They scored nearly as many runs in the ninth as they had all game, driving in 16 to go up, 33-17, and giving the Griffins a seemingly impossible task in the home half of the ninth.
Head coach Scott Mularz, who has spent his life around the game as both a player and coach, had never seen anything quite like what unfolded in the ninth inning.
“At the time I really didn’t say a lot, it was our upperclassmen who did a good job saying, ‘Let’s go and get one or two to win this game,’” Mularz said of the tie game at the start of the ninth inning. “That was probably the craziest inning I’ve ever been a part of. Just in terms of how it went down, I’ve never been a part of anything like that. Our guys did a good job getting the momentum and they just kept building off of it.”
Loren Cox and Baron Brack got things going with RBI hits to establish a three-run lead, but from there the rally was only just beginning. In total, the team registered eight RBI hits with three runs walked in and a fielder’s choice.
“As far as the fight and resilience to be down 14-4 and come back like that, I haven’t seen that before,” Mularz said of the effort from his team. “To keep throwing punches with them throwing them right back at us, our guys responded well to it.”
Zach Johnson and Landon Clark led the stacked stat sheet with six RBI each. Brack wasn’t far behind, with five RBI from as many hits, while seven other Owls registered at least one RBI and everyone in the order came away with a hit.
The win puts the Owls at 5-9 on the season with a 2-0 start to SLIAC play. It hasn’t been a consistent display, but with wins in successive games, and in that fashion, this is an opportunity for the team to carry some momentum forward.
“Our returners coming back, the innings they’ve thrown and at-bats in college, that was a big focus for us this year,” Mularz said. “The maturity wasn’t there early in the year but the signs are there now, and we can be as good or as bad as we want to be. We need to build off of it, take the momentum and go win the next inning, the next pitch, the next at-bat.”
Due to a lack of access to facilities the Owls haven’t been able to play a home game yet this season, but they’ll play their first home games today in a doubleheader against Webster University at 1 p.m. at Columbus Christian Academy.
Mularz is hopeful the first home series can bring more of the positive play on offense that got them the big wins over Fontbonne, and the chance to find a groove is almost as important as adding two more to the win column at the start of conference play.
“It’s been up and down,” Mularz said. “The peaks and valleys will show in one game, and then we’ll have another where our approach isn’t very good. Consistency is the thing we’re fighting the most right now.”
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